Investigating the Research-Situated "Truths" Behind Texas Value-Added Assessment System (TxVAAS) Marketing Claims

• In Event: 31.012 - Cross-Cutting Session 3. On Measuring and Evaluating Education: Why Culture, Context, and Ways of Knowing Matter

Abstract

The Texas Value-Added Assessment System (TxVAAS) is in use throughout Texas to hold teachers more accountable for their effects on students’ achievement over time (i.e., teachers’ value-added). Researchers used a framework informed by the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing to conduct a content analysis of TxVAAS marketing claims to examine the “truths” behind each claim and help others critically consume said claims using non-proprietary, peer reviewed literature. As the more popular and also proprietary version of the TxVAAS -- the Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) -- continues to be sold to states and districts using similar marketing claims, researchers felt it important to critically examine such claims for multiple audiences within and beyond Texas borders.

Authors

• Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, Arizona State University

• Clarin Collins, Arizona State University